Dear Educators:
We are excited to announce that ACPS is participating in Speak Up 2016, now through January 13, 2017! Speak Up is an online national research survey that provides an easy way for students, parents and educators to (1) participate in local decisions about technology, and (2) contribute to the national dialogue about educational technology. Take the survey »
Your participation will help us answer questions, such as: Continue reading
The 2016 Making Connections Planning Team hopes your Monday was full of energized learning and that you walked away with new connections and ideas! Please help us make future events and professional learning opportunities even more engaging and useful to you by taking a few minutes to complete our “Making Reflections” exit slip.
The Planning Team will review your feedback in order to (1) maximize future division-level professional learning days, and (2) create better professional development opportunities for YOU. Continue reading
All ACPS educators and students now have access to a powerful accessibility tool called Snap&Read, which is designed to help learners of all ages better access content and organize ideas. Snap&Read is accessible as a Chrome internet browser extension or desktop app and provides on-demand read aloud support for students to engage with any text that they encounter, whether on a website (in any browser), in a PDF, or even part of a picture or illustration. Continue reading
Registration for Making Connections 2016 is now available through the ACPS Professional Development website! Get started here with registration details and course descriptions.
Making Connections 2016 will take place on Monday, November 7, at multiple school sites throughout the division. Please sign up as soon as possible to ensure that you receive your top choices and so we can guarantee an accurate lunch count for each location.
If you have already registered, please log in to the Making Connections site and double-check your enrollment by clicking on the “My Enrollments” link on the left.
Questions or comments? Email profdev@k12albemarle.org.
Started in 2012, Digital Learning Day has provided a powerful venue for education leaders to highlight great teaching practice and showcase innovative teachers, leaders, and instructional technology programs that are improving student outcomes. This grassroots effort blossomed into a massive nationwide celebration as teachers realized that Digital Learning Day is not about technology, it’s about learning.
Mark your calendar: The next Digital Learning Day will be February 23, 2017. Join the celebration »
Thursday, November 10 | 4:30 to 6 p.m. | ARC PD Rooms 1 & 2
This November 10, the county is offering a new, 90-minute professional development opportunity, Illuminate Vetting Project, to provide training in how to efficiently and effectively vet assessment items in Illuminate for quality, SOL alignment, and Blooms level. Completion of this workshop will allow teachers to get paid to vet questions. Learn more and get registered »
The 2016-17 ACPS Performance Tasks are now accessible through the Assessment website. How to get there: (1) From the Staff page on the division-level website, click on ACPS Performance Tasks under Spotlight. (2) Sign in (top-right) in order to make the “Task Materials” link visible in the left navigation bar. (3) Click on Task Materials to access elementary and secondary task materials, PD materials, and Lifelong-Learner Standard Rubrics. (In an attempt to make customization by PLCs and individual teachers easier, we have uploaded Word versions of the rubrics with an additional row for task/assignment-specific look-fors.)
View the Performance Tasks FAQs for details about site content, responsibilities, and points of contact.
We’re excited to launch registration for Making Connections 2016 later this month! As a preview, we’re digging deeper this year into our longstanding work around Rigor, Relevance and Relationships. This November 7, Albemarle County Public Schools will host a variety of related, half-day workshops featuring national experts at multiple school sites throughout the division. Continue reading
A message from Sarah Lawson, Assistant Director of the Virginia Center for the Book
Planning for the 2017 Virginia Festival of the Book (March 22-26) is now underway, and we are eager to work with ACPS teachers, librarians, and reading specialists to schedule classroom/school visits and/or assemblies with some of the featured children’s and young adult authors in all genres.
We hope to schedule more author school visits in the 2017 Festival than ever before, so we encourage you to explore this opportunity, whether you have in the past or not. Continue reading
Greetings ACPS Students, Parents, Teachers, and School Administrators:
I hope that you have had a great start to the school year and that you are enjoying the many learning opportunities that ACPS and your school offers. We could not make these opportunities available and successful without you!
You likely are aware that during last school year, we had a committee working on revising our homework policy (Policy IKB) based on concerns raised by the ACPS School Health Advisory Board about student stress and sleep needs. Continue reading